Disney Interactive produces mobile games, applications, and websites. The
user research group is responsible for evaluating games and apps through user
testing. We have been working on refining our video capture and streaming
solutions for user tests on mobile devices. We designed this experiment to see
if any of the recording methods we used were changing player behavior and
impacting their gameplay performance. We assessed changes in absolute score for
two different games to determine impact to player efficacy. We analyzed
observational data and player self-ratings on performance, comfort, awareness,
and focus. We evaluated children, young adults, and older adults. The results
across all of the data were consistent and this paper explains the experiment
and provides recommendations for mobile recording of user test sessions.

TF-CBT triangle of life: a game to help with cognitive behavioral therapy

Under direction of medical professionals associated with the National Child
Traumatic Stress Network, a mobile game was developed for children ages 10-12
to teach the Cognitive Triangle concept of feelings, thoughts, and behaviors.
This triangle is an essential component of Trauma-Focused Cognitive Behavioral
Therapy (TF-CBT). A storybook experience with minigames was quickly prototyped,
but first playtests showed a lack of engagement with children. The game was
revised to emphasize side-scroller platform advancement where success in a
level was tied intrinsically to cognitive triangle classification. Children
rated the game highly across a series of playtests. The game has potential to
be used by clinicians delivering TF-CBT as an appealing exercise for children.

Gamified education is a novel concept, and early trials show its potential
to engage students and improve their performance. However, little is known
about how different students learn with gamification, and how their gaming
habits influence their experience. In this paper we present a study where data
regarding student performance and gaming preferences, from a gamified
engineering course, was collected and analyzed. We performed cluster analysis
to understand what different kinds of students could be observed in our
gamified experience, and how their behavior could be correlated to their gaming
characteristics. We identified four main student types: the Achievers, the
Regular students, the Halfhearted students, and the Underachievers, all
representing different strategies towards the course and with different gaming
preferences. Here we will thoroughly describe each student type and address how
different gaming preferences might have impacted the students' learning
experience.

Paradigms of games research in HCI: a review of 10 years of research at CHI

In this paper we argue that games and play research in the field of
Human-Computer Interaction can usefully be understood as existing within 4
distinct research paradigms. We provide our rationale for developing these
paradigms and discuss their significance in the context of the inaugural CHI
Play conference.

Screen ecologies, multi-gaming and designing for different registers of
engagement

In this paper, we propose the notion of screen ecologies and argue for its
importance in the study of contemporary digital game play. We draw on findings
from a range of studies to highlight the interplay between screen ecologies,
game design, and registers of engagement. We discuss how game play is
increasingly mediated by multiple screen configurations, and in turn, how the
design of different games are suited to or appropriated within these different
screen ecologies. From this analysis we propose a number of modalities of
game-engagement that we argue will assist further HCI research into game design
and player experience research.

In competitive games where players' skill levels are mismatched, the play
experience can be unsatisfying for both stronger and weaker players. Player
balancing provides assistance for less-skilled players in order to make games
more competitive and engaging. Although player balancing can be seen in many
real-world games, there is little work on the design and effectiveness of these
techniques outside of shooting games. In this paper we provide new knowledge
about player balancing in the popular and competitive racing genre. We studied
issues of noticeability and balancing effectiveness in a prototype racing game,
and tested the effects of several balancing techniques on performance and play
experience. The techniques significantly improved the balance of player
performance, were preferred by both experts and novices, increased novices'
feelings of competitiveness, and did not detract from experts' experience. Our
results provide new understanding of the design and use of player balancing for
racing games, and provide novel techniques that can also be applied to other
genres.

The first hour experience: how the initial play can engage (or lose) new
players

The first time a player sits down with a game is critical for their
engagement. Games are a voluntary activity and easy to abandon. If the game
cannot hold player attention, it will not matter how much fun the game is later
on if the player quits early. Worse, if the initial experience was odious
enough, the player will dissuade others from playing. Industry advice is to
make the game fun from the start to hook the player. In our analysis of over
200 game reviews and interviews with industry professionals, we advance an
alternative, complementary solution. New design terminology is introduced such
as "holdouts" (what keeps players playing despite poor game design) and the
contrast between momentary fun vs. intriguing experiences. Instead of
prioritizing fun, we assert that intrigue and information should be seen as
equally valuable for helping players determine if they want to continue
playing. The first sustained play session (coined "first hour"), when inspected
closely, offers lessons for game development and our understanding of how
players evaluate games as consumable products.

Recent research suggests that participation in online video games allows
players to create an "idealized self" through their characters, that is, a
character perceived to be more attractive or interesting than the player.
However, our research indicates that players use carefully created character
names to develop a persistent, pragmatic identity to maintain social
relationships across games and related sites, and to express their
personalities by incorporating elements of popular culture, literary
references, and aspects of their own personal histories. Identity in gaming is
thus more complex than identification with the physical representation of the
character.

Co-design is an ideal approach to design with users. It allows designers to
create products, such as games, with their intended users and in their natural
environment, e.g., children and their teachers in their school. Nowadays school
contexts, however, pose their own requirements to co-design, which can affect
its success. For instance, school contexts tend to be associated to boring rote
by learners, who are used to interactive digital games. Gamification can then
help in creating a positive engaging experience for school classes that
co-design, as games do. This paper takes up such a view: it gamifies co-design
contexts in order to positively engage school classes. To this end it presents
two studies with gamified co-design in primary schools: heterogeneous teams
co-designed prototypes by resolving missions as in a game, in the first
short-term study; they did it in an even more gamified context, in the second
long-term study. Results of both studies are encouraging for the approach. The
paper also advances basic guidelines for tangibly gamifying co-design at
school, grounded in the studies and literature.

Exploring the effect of achievements on students attending university
orientation

University orientation is a key event for new students that aids in the
transition from a school to a university environment. A smartphone orientation
application was built to aid students attending the event. Achievements were
added to the application in an attempt to engage students further with the
orientation activities and application. An exploratory field study was
undertaken to evaluate the effect of the achievement system on participants
attending orientation. Forty-six new students were recruited to test the
orientation application. Twenty-six participants used a gamified version of the
orientation application and twenty participants used a non-gamified version.
While the gamification was generally well received, no impact on user
experience was evident. Some effect on engagement with orientation activities
was shown. Participants who used the gamified system reported the game elements
as fun, but some negative issues arose, such as cheating.

Decreasing sedentary behaviours in pre-adolescents using casual exergames at
school

There are risks to too much sedentary behaviour, regardless of a person's
level of physical activity, particularly for children. As exercise habits
instilled during childhood are strong predictors of healthy lifestyles later in
life, it is important that schools break up long sedentary periods with short
periods of physical activity. Casual exergames are an appealing option for
schools who wish to engage adolescents, and have been shown to provide exertion
levels at recommended values, even when played for only 10 minutes. In this
paper we describe a preliminary survey with teachers of a local school that
informed the deployment of a casual exergame with a group of pre-adolescent
students from the same school. We show that students preferred the game to
traditional exercise, that the game was able to generate appropriate levels of
exertion in pre-adolescents, and that students have a sophisticated
understanding of the role of exercise in their lives. Overall, we establish the
feasibility of casual exergames for combating sedentary behavior in preteen
classrooms.

In this paper we describe the design, development and testing of two
computer games using Sifteo Cubes that help children to train their visual
perspective taking (VPT) skills, i.e. the ability to see the world from another
person's perspective. The challenge was to design an enjoyable and usable game
that takes into account the huge variability in the perspective taking skills
within the target group (preschoolers at the age of five, and older children
with learning disabilities). Sifteo Cubes can be considered as digital or
intelligent manipulatives that are often used in instruction. We advocate that
these type tangible objects can help children performing VPT related tasks
since they allow for actions in the real world that aid their thinking.
Pre-test and post-test results revealed a short term learning effect on VPT
skills after playing the two games.

Using video games to facilitate understanding of attention deficit
hyperactivity disorder: a feasibility study

This paper presents an approach for facilitating understanding of Attention
Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) through the procedural rhetoric of our
persuasive video game Drawn to Distraction. Different from realistic
simulations, our game is designed to convey a message about the disorder
primarily through game mechanics. To test the feasibility of this approach, we
conducted a series of studies involving caregivers of ADHD-affected children
and the general public. The results, especially in Experiment 3, show promising
trends on the feasibility of using persuasive games to promote understanding of
psychological disorders.

Instructional objectives to core-gameplay: a serious game design technique

This paper explores a gap within the serious game design research. That gap
is the ambiguity surrounding the process of aligning the instructional
objectives of serious games with their core-gameplay i.e. the moment-to-moment
activity that is the core of player interaction. A core-gameplay focused design
framework is proposed that can work alongside existing, more broadly focused
serious games design frameworks. The framework utilises an inquiry-based
approach that allows the serious game designer to use key questions as a means
to clearly outline instructional objectives with the core-gameplay. The use of
this design framework is considered in the context of a small section of
gameplay from an educational game currently in development. This demonstration
of the framework brings shows how instructional objectives can be embedded into
a serious games core-gameplay.

Player strategies: achieving breakthroughs and progressing in single-player
and cooperative games

Challenge is considered to be one of the key components of game-play, where
game designers face the tricky task of getting the balance right so that
game-play is neither too easy nor too difficult. Through attempting in-game
challenges, players experience cycles of breakdown and breakthrough, where
breakthroughs involve moments of insight in which learning occurs. However,
little attention has been given to how players actually overcome challenges to
progress during game-play. Across two studies, we explore the ways in which
players attempt to achieve breakthroughs in relation to single-player and
co-located multiplayer games. We identified a number of strategies that are
used by players, which illustrate how learning occurs during play. For
instance, while "Experiment" involves forming an informal hypothesis, "Trial
& error" occurs when the player tries to find out what, if anything, will
happen when they carry out an action. These strategies are considered in
relation to supporting player progress and engaging game-play when designing
commercial and educational games.

The edge of glory: the relationship between metacritic scores and player
experience

This study sought to examine how measures of player experience used in
videogame research relate to Metacritic Professional and User scores. In total,
573 participants completed an online survey, where they responded the Player
Experience of Need Satisfaction (PENS) and the Game Experience Questionnaire
(GEQ) in relation to their current favourite videogame. Correlations among the
data indicate an overlap between the player experience constructs and the
factors informing Metacritic scores. Additionally, differences emerged in the
ways professionals and users appear to allocate game ratings. However, the data
also provide clear evidence that Metacritic scores do not reflect the full
complexity of player experience and may be misleading in some cases.

Engaged by boos and cheers: the effect of co-located game audiences on
social player experience

Little is currently known about the influence of co-located player audiences
on gameplay experience. Social player experiences are important to understand
in co-located gaming scenarios, because these experiences relate to player
performance. Player-audience relationships have been studied before, but prior
research focused on player attributes and typology. In our study, we
investigated the effect of different co-located audience types (silent,
positive, negative) and no audience on player experience. For the study, we
contribute a video game specifically developed for two-player, co-located
gameplay and findings from questionnaires and semi-structured interviews. Our
findings show that both -- negative and positive audience activity -- drove
players to become more engaged in the video game. In contrast, silent audiences
made players feel unnerved and less engaged in gameplay. Our paper is the first
to study of the relevance of co-located audience influence on player
experience, which is important for understanding the design of co-located
games.

Playing with strangers: understanding temporary teams in league of legends

Game researchers have extensively studied how players form long-term social
organizations such as guilds and clans to accomplish complex tasks such as
raiding in online games. Few studies have paid attention to how temporary teams
(or pickup groups) composed of strangers fulfill complex tasks. Riot Games'
League of Legends, a team-based competitive online game, is played by two
temporary teams. Players must collaborate with strangers in a relatively short
time (about 30-50 minutes). How do players interact and collaborate with their
teammates in temporary teams? To answer this question, we conducted an
ethnographic study within the League of Legends community. We conducted 30
semi-structured interviews with experienced players. We found that rich social
interaction exists within temporary teams. Players want to collaborate with
strangers through communication and coordination. They discipline their own
ways of interaction to facilitate collaboration. They try to exert influence
over their teammates. We further discuss design implications for facilitating
collaboration among strangers.

Whom are you looking for?: the effects of different player representation
relations on the presence in gaze-based games

In this paper, we investigate the influence of different loci of
manipulation relations (position of the player's ability to assert control) on
presence. Novel game input devices (such as Microsoft Kinect or PlayStation
Move) contribute to presence, and allow a broad range of game interactions,
such as using facial expressions, gaze or head movement. This increase of
complexity has led to some interesting design challenges: in a typical game
design the setup of the locus of manipulation is quite simple as there is only
one. For instance, the player uses a gamepad to move a game character through
an obstacle course. However, design decisions get more complicated, when a game
design includes more than just one input device and a second locus of
manipulation. Does the relation of the two loci of manipulation have an impact
on the perceived presence? To address this topic we utilized eye tracking
technology, and carried out a comparative study consisting of four scenarios
based on a 2D platform game. Three scenarios are controlled using an eye
tracking device and a gamepad. They differ in their relation between the player
character and the avatar. The 4th scenario is solely controlled with the
gamepad. Results revealed that the inclusion of gaze input to investigate this
issue proved to be very effective. It was discovered that the relation between
the loci of manipulation has a strong influence on the perceived presence and
its sub-dimensions.

Learning curves: analysing pace and challenge in four successful puzzle
games

The pace at which challenges are introduced in a game has long been
identified as a key determinant of both the enjoyment and difficulty
experienced by game players, and their ability to learn from game play. In
order to understand how to best pace challenges in games, there is great value
in analysing games already demonstrated as highly engaging. Play-through videos
of four puzzle games (Portal, Portal 2 Co-operative mode, Braid and Lemmings),
were observed and analysed using metrics derived from a behavioural psychology
understanding of how people solve problems. Findings suggest that; 1) the main
skills learned in each game are introduced separately, 2) through simple
puzzles that require only basic performance of that skill, 3) the player has
the opportunity to practice and integrate that skill with previously learned
skills, and 4) puzzles increase in complexity until the next new skill is
introduced. These data provide practical guidance for designers, support
contemporary thinking on the design of learning structures in games, and
suggest future directions for empirical research.

Videogame control interfaces continue to evolve beyond their traditional
roots, with devices encouraging more natural forms of interaction growing in
number and pervasiveness. Yet little is known about their true potential for
intuitive use. This paper proposes methods to leverage existing intuitive
interaction theory for games research, specifically by examining different
types of naturally mapped control interfaces for videogames using new measures
for previous player experience. Three commercial control devices for a racing
game were categorised using an existing typology, according to how the
interface maps physical control inputs with the virtual gameplay actions. The
devices were then used in a within-groups (n=64) experimental design aimed at
measuring differences in intuitive use outcomes. Results from mixed design
ANOVA are discussed, along with implications for the field.

Understanding expectations with multiple controllers in an augmented reality
videogame

Player experiences and expectations are connected. The presumptions players
have about how they control their gameplay interactions may shape the way they
play and perceive videogames. A successfully engaging player experience might
rest on the way controllers meet players' expectations. We studied player
interaction with novel controllers on the Sony PlayStation Wonderbook, an
augmented reality (AR) gaming system. Our goal was to understand player
expectations regarding game controllers in AR game design. Based on this
preliminary study, we propose several interaction guidelines for hybrid input
from both augmented reality and physical game controllers.

Around the world in 8 workshops: investigating anticipated player
experiences of children

Player experience describes the qualities of player-game interaction and is
typically evaluated during or after the game has been developed. Different
approaches exist to improve and optimize player experience during the design
process (e.g., design guidelines). However, the anticipated or expected player
experience of users can also guide game developers and researcher in order to
develop better games. A series of game ideation workshops with children aged 8
to 15 years was conducted in eight different locations around the world. The
workshops produced video snippets, in which children explain their thoughts on
possible game play scenarios of a game idea (i.e., anticipations and
expectations). An initial content analysis of the videos highlights the game
elements and playful experiences that contribute to the anticipated player
experience of the children that should guide game developers and researchers.

Beyond designing for motivation: the importance of context in gamification

Most design advice for the development of successful gamification systems
has focused on how best to engage the end user while imbuing the system with
playfulness. This paper argues that it is also critical for designers to focus
on the broad context of the system's deployment, including the identification
of stakeholder requirements, requirements from the hosting organization, deep
understanding of the diversity of the target population, understanding of
limits in the agency of the target users, and constraints arising from the
post-deployment environment. To illustrate the importance of such contextual
and stakeholder analysis, the paper presents issues and associated solutions
that were discovered through the creation of a children's nutrition and fitness
education gamification system. The problems identified through a broad analysis
of context significantly altered the design of the system and led to the
realization that the initially conceptualized project would have been unusable.
The paper concludes with concrete lessons for designers.

Maze commander: a collaborative asynchronous game using the oculus rift
& the sifteo cubes

In this paper we present Maze Commander, a two-player game using two
different types of interaction. One player uses the Oculus Rift and the other
uses the Sifteo Cubes. The game requires effective and efficient communication
to win. We also conducted an evaluation. The results show a positive evaluation
for the game experience and collaboration, but no significant differences in
game experience between the two modes of interaction. However, preferred
interaction modalities were not yet taken into consideration for selecting the
participants. We also present lessons learned from this experiment, and our
future work.

Networking is a key component of digital games, with many featuring
multiplayer modes and online components. The time required to transmit data
over a network can lead to usability problems such as inconsistency between
players' views of a virtual world, and race conditions when resolving players'
actions. Implementing a good consistency maintenance scheme is therefore
critical to gameplay. Sadly, problems with consistency remain a regular
occurrence in multiplayer games, causing player game states to diverge. There
is little guidance available on how these inconsistencies impact player
experience, nor on how best to repair them when they arise. We investigate the
effectiveness of different strategies for repairing inconsistencies, and show
that the three most important factors affecting the detection of corrections
are the player's locus of attention, the smoothness of the correction and the
duration of the correction.

Currently, there are no frameworks or methods for the systematic design of
cognitive gameplay, the cognitive processes that emerge from the gameplay
experience. In this paper, our aim is to contribute to the understanding of how
to systematically design interaction for cognitive gameplay. The quality of the
essential interactions between the player and the game -- the sum of the
operational forms of several structural elements of interaction -- is the heart
of cognitive gameplay. One such element is activation time, the timing of the
action response of an interaction. We conducted a study to investigate the
effect of different operational forms of activation time on cognitive gameplay.
Two puzzle games were developed, each with one version for immediate activation
time and another for on-demand activation time. The on-demand version of both
games engaged participants in more effortful and reflective cognitive gameplay,
while the immediate version was not conducive to such engagement.

A framework for cooperative communication game mechanics from grounded
theory

A rich element of cooperative games are mechanics that communicate. Unlike
automated awareness cues and synchronous verbal communication, cooperative
communication mechanics enable players to share information and direct action
by engaging with game systems. These include both explicitly communicative
mechanics, such as built-in pings that direct teammates' attention to specific
locations, and emergent communicative mechanics, where players develop their
own conventions about the meaning of in-game activities, like jumping to get
attention. We use a grounded theory approach with 40 digital games to identify
and classify the types of cooperative communication mechanics game designers
might use to enable cooperative play. We provide details on the classification
scheme and offer a discussion on the implications of cooperative communication
mechanics.

Cultural appropriation in games entails the taking of knowledge, artifacts
or expression from a culture and recontextualizing it within game structures.
While cultural appropriation is a pervasive practice in games, little attention
has been given to the ethical issues that emerge from such practices with
regards to how culture is portrayed. This paper problematizes cultural
appropriation in the context of a serious game for children inspired by
Día de los Muertos, a Mexican festival focused on remembrance of the
dead. Taking a research through design approach, we demonstrate that
recontextualised cultural elements can retain their basic, original meaning.
However, we also find that cultural appropriation is inevitable and its ethical
implications can be far reaching. In our context, ethical concerns arose as a
result of children's beliefs that death affects prominent others and their
destructive ways of coping with death. We argue that revealing emergent ethical
concerns is imperative before deciding how and in what way to encourage
culturally authentic narratives.

Know before you go: feelings of flow for older players depends on game and
player characteristics

The success of therapeutic games has received recent attention in the
research literature, particularly for health issues frequently experienced by
adults over age sixty-five. However, less is known about the experience of
older adults after interaction with these games and what may promote their
adoption and use. We measured the development of flow in a study of over 100
older adults who played a video game for 15 hours across three weeks. Findings
indicate that flow development was affected by both individual differences
between participants, measured prior to any game experience, and to
characteristics of the game, particularly those related to usability of the
interface and input device. We conclude with discussion of the flow experience
in games for older adults and guidelines for the design of engaging and
immersive therapeutic games.

Doctoral consortiums

A model of game design activity: new perspectives on creativity and
innovation

Innovation and creativity seem to be mere buzzwords, but the quest for
innovation and creativity by game companies is very real. This Ph.D.
dissertation suggests adopting a new perspective on these concepts by
abandoning a managerial attitude and favoring a design approach. The design
process of video games is under-studied, and this research aims to create a
model of video game design activity, using the already existing literature in
the field of design, and the observation of actual game designers in Montreal.

Examining the impact of game interventions on depression among older adults

My dissertation research aims to investigate the feasibility and effects of
game interventions as depression treatment for geriatric depression. More
specifically, I will examine the effects of both game types and settings on
older adults' depression. A between-subject factorial design experiment will be
conducted to address the main purpose. Results from the study will contribute
to existing literature on the influencing mechanisms of games for depression,
and provide practical knowledge of game design for mental health purposes.

This paper reports on the Ph.D work of A.Melonio. The work deals with
co-design for learning contexts. Since co-design with children should be
engaging, the Ph.D. work proposes to gamify learning contexts with game ideas
and elements for playfully engaging learners and teachers alike. Moreover,
since co-design requires to create a sense of partnership, the Ph.D. research
proposes the adoption of cooperative learning strategies for fostering the
inclusion of all in the design process. In the opening, the main research area
and the motivation of this Ph.D work are overviewed. The paper continues
presenting the research method of the Ph.D. work and the related goal,
objectives and questions. The paper ends recapping the result to date and the
next steps to reach.

Using an invisible coach to help players achieve fitness goals in exergames
while retaining immersion

Two approaches to designing exergames exist: design a game with incidental
exercise, or design an exercise program with an incidental game. We aim to
combine the advantages of these approaches by developing an invisible coach
that modifies gameplay in order to guide workouts while maintaining game
immersion. This opens opportunities to guide players toward focused exercise
goals, such as cycling at a desired intensity, or strengthening a weak muscle
group, while allowing players to retain the sense of playing a game. We are
investigating the design and efficacy of an invisible coach in the context of a
novel strength training game.

My thesis proposes to use physiological measures with a focus on
electroencephalography (EEG) to examine user-centered difficulty in games and
user interfaces. The thesis specifically looks at both intended sources of
difficulty and unintended sources of difficulty.

When you play, you are deeply involved which is why interaction designers
and game designers are increasingly creating playful experiences. However, a
pitfall in these digital designs is to focus too much on the game rules and
goals. In doing so, we miss the opportunity to design around the more open and
self-expressive play that we might relate to our childhoods. In response to
this problem, we will explore new digital designs using a lens of play. In
treating play as something aspirational, we believe our designs will be able to
change our relationships with each other and give new meaning to the spaces
around us.

Student games competitions

PoetryLab is a close listening game for iOS in which players manipulate a
virtual reel-to-reel tape machine and learn editing techniques to solve sound
puzzles featuring recorded poetry. Gameplay teaches players about poetry and
recording media from both auditory and archival perspectives. Players are
trained to listen to and interact with recorded speech in new and unfamiliar
ways as they discover the provenance of the poetry excerpts -- a university
reading series held in 1960-1970s Montreal.

Tag and Seek is a location-based game which leads a traveler through Tainan
City in Taiwan. The traveler's task is to find Harry's friends who are hiding
at different sites in the city. Once at the site, the traveler has to scan a
Near Field Communication (NFC) tag placed on a board looking like Harry's
friend. When the NFC tag is scanned the lost friend is found, information about
the site is presented and instructions to the next site will be available. The
game lets the traveler experience culture, gain knowledge about sites in the
city and meet local citizens -- without the traveler having to plan the trip
ahead. By implementing NFC technology as check points the interaction with the
game differs from regular tourist guides and the threat of privacy which comes
with location-based services is greatly lowered as the traveler is not being
tracked by GPS. From our user evaluation we found that both the interface and
interaction with the boards could use some improvements to increase the
usability.

Many people who own a smartphone spend a large amount of time playing mobile
games. Despite the technological capabilities and social potential of these
devices, the majority of mobile games make limited use of available
technologies and contain little or no multiplayer elements. BloxAR is an
augmented reality mobile game that aims to provide a fun and engaging social
experience. In this game, players compete in teams to be the first to build a
virtual block structure within a set time. Play consists of physically
exploring the structure in an augmented reality environment, building the
structure by placing blocks and cooperating with teammates to combine blocks
together.

In this paper we introduce Hidden Lion, a Location Based Service (LBS) APP
game which is related to sword lion culture in Anping, Taiwan. Sword Lion
symbolizes the protector god in Anping. Many local people built sword lions in
front their houses because they believed that these stone plated statues will
keep evil spirits away. Nowadays these statues decay with time and weather and
leave a few in Anping. Recently, with the promotion of Government, many
travelers are attracted to come here and find out remaining sword lions and
experience local cultural stories. However, sword lion searching has some
problems: (1) Sword lions are hard to be found. (2) Sword lion searching may
disturb local people. (3) Visitors do not truly realize the cultural story of
sword lions. Therefore, we develop Hidden Lion which has a storyline and theme
that has a connection with sword lion. In the game, visitors can follow the
maps and the precise positions of sword lions to find them easily. What's more,
Hidden Lion includes interactive mission games for visitors to play. These
games are related to the background story of sword lions. While playing the
interactive games at each sword lion site with this APP, visitors can find
sword lions and experience the background story of each sword lion.
Furthermore, Hidden Lion creates a service system in Anping. From the support
from Anping district office, more and more visitors can come here and play the
Hidden Lion. After completing all the interactive games, the visitors will
receive a coupon of sword lion model coloring from Sword Lion School as a
reward, which gradually forms a business cycle and culture connection. These
visitors may be encouraged to come to Anping again and again, enhancing
cultural and commercial development in Anping.

Traditional methods of teaching concepts relating to buoyancy (sinking and
floating) to elementary students are often ineffective. With the development of
new const-effective haptic controllers, we may be able to improve upon
traditional teaching methods. Data was gathered during focus groups with both
teachers and students to develop a list of misconceptions to target. In
addition to targeting misconceptions, we use a Novint Falcon haptic force
feedback controller to enable direct feeling of forces. To effectively merge
the haptic controller into the system usability testing was performed. This
paper presents the initial findings of our interactive playable simulation.

Smartphone games lack the hardware interface afforded by other gaming media
like controllers for consoles, keyboard and mouse for PCs, joysticks and
buttons on arcade cabinets, etc. As such, many popular games focus on puzzle
mechanics using the touch screen interface, such as Angry Birds[1] or Cut the
Rope[2]. We focused on skill-based, reactionary gameplay with an intuitive and
unique control scheme in Herbert, where the player moves the character around
the world by tilting the device and free oneself from traps by shaking the
device. We did this in order to minimize on-screen GUI clutter found in other
games such as OMG Pirates![3], Street Fighter IV[4] and Zombieville, USA[5]
while retaining the challenge enjoyment, and intuitiveness of skill based
gaming. The web version of the game can be played at:
https://www.cs.drexel.edu/~amd435/Herbert_Web.html

ASCENT is a first person mountain climbing game on the Oculus Rift (PC). The
player attempts to ascend the highest peaks of each continent. Equipped with
two ice axes, he challenges the breathtaking slopes of mountaineering legends
such as the Eiger, Denali and Mount Everest. His ascents are captured by his
GoPro and watched by millions on the web. Thanks to his sponsors and his fans,
the player will be able to test himself on new mountains and upgrade his
equipment.

Educational serious games are effective tools to communicate topics of
interest to diverse audiences through well defined gameplay designs. In recent
years, reproductive health has become an area of special interest for
government and health organizations when designing educational programs for
teens and young adults. In this paper we present UnderControl, a multi-level
mobile serious game that educates players about contraception and STI
prevention in an elegant, yet straightforward fashion.

This paper presents an Internet adaptation of a novella called The Bellman.
The design is inspired by unconventional games, particularly with regard to how
interaction affects a narrative. The Bellman explores how simple mechanics can
be part of the storytelling, and can have an impact on the player's emotional
response. The Bellman is available at www.thebellman.ca.

Word Blastoff is a single-player word game app in which players are
challenged to create 2 to 7 letter words from a pool of randomly-generated
letters that enter the screen and gravitate towards a central black hole. With
each letter that it zaps, the hole expands in size and ultimately explodes once
it is too large for the screen, ending the game.

Little Newton is a 3D defense game in which the player learns about basic
physics concepts by controlling physical attributes of projectiles. The
mechanics of the game require the player to learn the basics of parabolic arcs,
and friction in order to make use of the projectiles. Educational and learning
theories are applied to the design in order to increase the ability of the
player to learn how to play the game itself and therefore learn physics
concepts in the process, balancing entertainment and educational content.

OHR is a puzzle and platform game, based on both classical mechanics and
tangible interaction, powered by Unity3D and a custom-built hardware interface
called Radiant Square (Radiant2). OHR tells the tale of Spark, an electronic
life form, which wakes up in an electronic components dump, trying to exit from
it. Players will help Spark to solve puzzles placed throughout the game world
using the provided game elements, represented as physical electronic
components, by placing them on the Radiant2. Thanks to both the game design and
Radiant2 each puzzle can be solved in different ways, allowing the players to
explore various solutions. A video presentation of OHR and Radiant2 can be
found at: http://youtu.be/0Gh0tuTHAXk

IRC quest: using the commons dilemma to support a single-screen game for
hundreds of players

In this paper we describe the challenges of creating a game that can be
played by large groups on a single display. Our solutions include the use of
smart phones as game controllers using the standard IRC protocol, voting-based
turn interaction, and automatically customized avatars allowing hundreds of
players to appear on the display simultaneously. To provide meaningful gameplay
for large numbers of people, the game is designed around a series of commons
dilemmas.

This paper presents a 2D game designed to assist students in better
understanding motion graphs. In this game the player's character is not
controlled by a joystick or control pad. Instead the game employs a unique
interface enabling the player to control the actions of a character by creating
a motion graph. The motion graph represents the desired position, velocity, or
acceleration of the player's character over time. The graph must be fashioned
to move the character through various puzzle environments. Through trial and
error the player may achieve a better understanding of what motion graphs
depict in the real world.

Jelly polo: increasing richness and competition in sports games using
small-scale exertion

Sports video games should be inherently competitive, but they fall short in
providing true competition for the players. The emphasis on statistical
simulations in traditional sports video games has taken away the ability for
players to gain expertise development, differentiate how they play from other
players, and change the way they play throughout the course of the game. Jelly
Polo, a 2D 3-on-3 sports video game uses small-scale exertion to counter the
drawbacks stated above. By providing impulse-based movement and precision
passing, players can gain expertise in running and passing, differentiating how
they play. The small-scale exertion aspect also makes players fatigued, forcing
them to strategize how they play throughout the course of a game. Jelly Polo is
the first game to show that small-scale exertion can increase the richness and
competitiveness in sports video games.

"Generic Shooter 3000"" is a First-Person shooter with semi-realistic
interaction, where actions such as firing a gun or diving through underwater
sections are performed with your own body -- through the use of biofeedback
technology. This prototype is the idealised version of a research game
developed for a master's thesis project on "biofeedback interaction in video
games".

We propose "Toru," a game that reverses the game skills developed as a
person ages using ultra-high-frequency (mosquito) sound. The game has its
origin in the computer game Simon (1978), which we interpret from visual to
auditory form using the mosquito sound (i.e., ultra-high-frequency sound) for
its difficulty settings. Because of individual variations in hearing, the Toru
game transforms its character from Mimicry (simulation) to Alea (chance), and
provides an opportunity to reverse the wisdom of age (i.e., game skills
advantage) developed by adults over the years.

Canvas Obscura is a survival-horror game where the player must locate
objects within an ever-changing environment. Canvas Obscura pushes the
boundaries of the survival-horror genre by including procedurally generated
levels.

With the intent of addressing growing concerns regarding online privacy,
Immaculacy is an interactive story that immerses the player in a slightly
dystopian world littered with privacy issues. Events unfold in the narrative
based on hidden scores kept during gameplay and calculated based on specific
decisions made by the player. Ultimately, we hope to create an engaging
environment that helps players consider the decisions they are making in their
own lives. We give the player experience with many privacy issues through their
explorations of a world of hyper surveillance and connectivity.

We present the Android game Taxi Trouble, an interactive, competitive and
collaborative multi-player game focusing on stimulating social interaction,
effective communication and entertaining groups of four to eight people for a
short timeframe.

Shynosaurs is a game designed to harvest the full range of the natural
behaviour of the eyes. On one hand, players need to use their eyes to aim where
they direct the mouse, click and drop characters into a safe zone (the cuties).
This is the usual behaviour of the eyes, as sensors to gather information. On
the other hand, players can choose to use their eyes to stare at and intimidate
the enemies (the shynosaurs) in order to slow them down and send them away.
This is also a natural behaviour of the eyes, which we sometimes use as means
to win a battle of wills. The Shynosaurs game is developed with eye-tracking in
mind and aims to embrace the delicate balance needed to use the eyes as both
sensors and controllers.

In this extended abstract, we present PowerFall, a 2D arcade-style
voice-controlled two-player collaborative game. In the game, two players
control two cartoon characters tied back-to-back under a falling parachute. The
players shout into smartphone microphones, and the volume of their voice is
used to navigate the parachute horizontally. The objective of the game is to
avoid various hazardous obstacles and safely land on the ground.

Works-in-progress

We present a personalized biofeedback game that trains subjects to relax
during gameplay. Training is achieved by increasing the game difficulty if the
subject's breathing rate differs from a prescribed target. Personalization is
achieved by adapting game difficulty to the subject's skill level, thus keeping
the game challenging over long periods. Validation on a small group of users
indicates that the game is effective at training players to acquire deep
breathing skills and reducing arousal in a subsequent stress-inducing task.

Game designers have to satisfy the needs of different player types. This
paper presents a generalizable concept for switching between different play
styles or genres without changing the basic game elements. As an example we
employ specific combinations of parametrized game elements to emulate
well-known genres: platformer, shooter, and puzzle games that can be switched
at run-time by the player. We discuss first insights gained through a
preliminary study.

Modern day crime scene investigation methods are continually being enhanced
by the application of new technologies to improve the analysis and presentation
of crime scene information, helping to solve and prosecute crimes. The IC-CRIME
Snapshots system provides a games-based tool to help train forensic
photographers in a virtual environment.

In this paper we present a playable interactive documentary experience,
wanted:Guild, about the experience of hardcore gamers. Informed by postmodern
literary theory, the project uses a stereoscopic virtual-reality-based
environment supported by the Oculus Rift and Razer Hydra. Using interviews with
hardcore gamers and environmental elements directly from the World of the
Warcraft, the project engages issues about the blurred boundary between reality
and simulation and encourages the players to explore these subjects themselves.
Our preliminary audience feedback indicates the success and potential area of
improvement for the project.

Children universities see universities hosting activities for exposing
children to research findings. However, universities are not per-se designed
for children. This paper advances the idea of gamifying university contexts for
children in order to provide them with a positive engaging experience. The
reported qualitative study serves as proof-of-concept. Engagement results,
albeit preliminary, are positive.

Games designed around digital bodily play involve bodily movement and
expression to create engaging gameplay experiences. Most feedback in these
games takes the form of visual stimuli. To explore the gameplay mechanics
afforded by depriving players from these visual cues, we designed Reindeer
& Wolves, a role-playing game where blindfolded players capture other
players relying on their hearing alone. Based on our design and play testing,
we devised four strategies for designing games that incorporate sensory
deprivation as an element of the core mechanic.

Multi-player computer games are increasingly being designed to engage with
interpersonal bodily interactions, however, their focus is often limited to
facilitating direct body contact. In contrast, we propose that designers foster
varying levels of body contact through the design of shared controller
interactions to introduce new types of gameplay that affords players a more
nuanced engagement with the concept of socially and personally mediated
body-space in games. We explore this through our game intangle, where
participants follow computer-generated vocal instructions on how to operate
shared controllers that results inevitably into players weaving their bodies
together. This game embeds strong social values in the gameplay such as
collaboration, empathy and inclusivity.

Last tank rolling: exploring shared motion-based play to empower persons
using wheelchairs

This paper presents Last Tank Rolling, a collaborative motion-based military
survival game in which players using wheelchairs are invited to apply their
assistive device to control a tank. The game offers a strong in-game metaphor
for the wheelchair, and invites joint physical interaction that encourages
able-bodied players to perceive their peer as a competent collaborator.
Ultimately, this project aims to explore the value of shared video game play as
a means of empowering people with disabilities, and connecting players of all
abilities to foster inclusion.

"beam me 'round, Scotty!": exploring the effect of interdependence in
asymmetric cooperative games

In this paper, we explore interdependence through asymmetry as a possible
game design tool for enriching player experience. We describe a prototype game
we developed called "Beam Me 'Round, Scotty!" which alternately tightly or
loosely couples the cooperation of two heterogeneous groups of players in an
action-oriented science fiction survival game. Future studies will examine the
effects of interdependence on player experience and explore whether
deliberately symbiotic player relationships can serve as a shortcut to enhanced
socialization between players.

Using video games in rehabilitation has proven the potential to provide
patients with fun and motivating exercise systems. The main question therefore
is how to design body-based video games to improve a rehabilitation experience.
This work-in-progress paper introduces TouchPoints, a full body exertion
experience designed for stretching exercises in rehabilitation centers as part
of a series of short-duration design studies. Our concept is to provide
patients with a scenario where a stretching exercise routine could be
accomplished in a playful and pleasant way. Lo-fi prototypes were used to
demonstrate the game-play and gather valuable feedback from users' experience,
which later informed the design of the TouchPoints. In addition, we propose
further user-centric developments for TouchPoints involving both rehabilitation
patients and therapists on how to increase patients' motivation. This paper is
intended to read alongside the game demo video.

Perception is one of the most important cognitive capabilities of an entity
since it determines how an entity perceives its environment. The presented work
focuses on providing cost efficient but realistic perceptual processes for
intelligent virtual agents (IVAs) or NPCs with the goal of providing a sound
information basis for the entities' decision making processes. In addition, an
agent-central perception process should rovide a common interface for
developers to retrieve data from the IVAs' environment. The overall process is
evaluated by applying it to a scenario demonstrating its benefits. The
evaluation indicates, that such a realistically simulated perception process
provides a powerful instrument to enhance the (perceived) realism of an IVA's
simulated behavior.

More and more researchers want to use games as a way of engaging the general
public in their research; however game development takes time and requires
significant programming knowledge. The goal of RedWire is to enable researchers
to create games faster without starting from scratch each time. By encouraging
re-mixing and mash-ups, we hope to provide users with an easy way of sharing
games and creating variations of games.

Designing an immersive and entertaining pervasive gameplay experience with
spheros as game and interface elements

The Sphero is a robotic remote-controlled ball capable of rolling around on
its own in any direction at multiple speeds. Numerous games have been designed
for the Sphero for smartphones and tablets. However, most of these games
provide an interface for controlling the Sphero that is far from natural. These
games also do not put a strong focus on the physical environment around the
Sphero. This work discusses a control scheme used to control a Sphero with
another Sphero, and a pervasive game leveraging this scheme that emphasizes
physical properties of the environment to create an immersive experience.

A bottom-up method for developing a trait-based model of player behavior

Understanding player behavior through telemetry logs is an important yet
unresolved problem. Interpreting the meaning of players' low-level behaviors
over time is important due to its utility in (a) developing a more adaptive and
personalized game experience, (b) uncovering game design issues, and (c)
understanding the human cognitive processes in a gaming context, not to mention
its use and application to learning, training, and health. In this paper, the
authors describe a work in progress developing a quantified model of player
behavior for interpreting telemetry data from a first-person roll-playing game
(RPG). This kind of model constitutes a grammar that will allow us to make
sense of low-level behavioral data to assess personality, decision-making, and
other cognitive constructs through behavioral measures.

Flappy voice: an interactive game for childhood apraxia of speech therapy

We present Flappy Voice, a mobile game to facilitate acquisition of speech
timing and prosody skills for children with apraxia of speech. The game is
adapted from the popular game Flappy Bird, and replaces touch interaction with
voice control. Namely, we map the child's vocal loudness into the bird's
position by means of a smoothing filter. In this way, children control the game
via the duration and amplitude of their voice. Flappy Voice allows the
therapist to create new exercises with different difficulty levels, including
an assisted mode for children with limited skills, and a free mode for advanced
players. Results from a pilot user study with children support the feasibility
of the game as a speech training tool.

Gingerman challenge: a persuasive game for promoting adequate sunlight
exposure for office workers

In this paper, we present Gingerman Challenge, which is a persuasive mobile
game designed to promote moderate sunlight exposure. The design goals of
Gingerman Challenge are to help players to recognize the merits of sunlight
exposure and to promote maintenance of healthy vitamin D levels. We aim to
accomplish these goals by incorporating both casual gaming features and the
design principles drawn from preliminary user interviews.

This work-in-progress describes a three-month diary study, exploring how 25
players experienced the puzzle platformer FEZ over several gaming sessions.
Following each 30 -- 60 minute gaming sessions, players wrote a diary entry
describing their game experience and rated their intrinsic motivation.
Preliminary findings showed that intrinsic motivation significantly decreased
over the course of several sessions. Interestingly, while all players reported
comparable experiences during the first few sessions, players who would later
finish the game, were less likely to experience this loss of motivation, even
before actual completion of the game. Further steps for data analysis are
discussed.

We propose the notion of semi-iconic game input (i.e., sharing some
properties of game objects instead of being a complete iconic representation of
them) and investigate influence of controller representation on player
experience. In particular, we developed game controllers at different degrees
of realism (symbolic, semi-iconic, and iconic). We present the developed
controllers and initial usability findings.

In an attempt to provide academic game development studios with an efficient
and low-cost data collection system that can be used across multiple games, the
Assessment Data Aggregator for Gaming Environments (ADAGE) framework is
currently being designed and developed by the University of Wisconsin and the
Learning Games Network, in tandem with the Play Data Consortium [1, 8]. The
developers of ADAGE hope that the open-source nature of the project will
encourage collaboration across the multiple academic institutions currently
developing and investigating the use of video games as educational tools.

This design research explored ways to support emotional expression in
interactive games played in a public, social setting. Affective gaming has
incorporated emotional assessment to tailor feedback during gameplay, but as a
result, distills complex emotional states into simple inputs. Our research
focused not on measuring affect but on designing games to evoke emotional
expression and sharing of personal experiences. This work centered on games in
public spaces as a particularly rich area for exploration to influence other
people. We present the design and initial play-testing results of four games
that draw on a player's idiosyncratic experience and feelings as part of the
game. These designs were based on internal paper prototyping sessions,
naturalistic observation of the testing space and design and enactment sessions
with researchers as participants and designers. Our design sessions indicate
that image-based games are a rich element for these types of games, and the
importance of ambiguity and disagreement amongst players to promote sharing of
personal stories. Other design principles that emerged include affordances for
short interactions, individual or multiple players, and forms of "cheating" as
game play.

The aim of this study is to test how well a subjective user experience (UX)
data predicts the Metascore of a digital game. The Metascore calculated by the
Metacritic.com is one of the most important indicators of a game's commercial
success. Thus, game companies are interested in finding reliable in-house tools
to estimate the Metascore before releasing their product. We utilized
subjective survey data to test a preliminary regression model for Metascore.
The model explained over 50% of the variance between the Metascores.
Practically, this means that we can predict a correct Metascore class (e.g.,
universal acclaim) with 75% accuracy. These promising results provide good
grounds for future research on the topic.

The game design process integrates visual, audio, gameplay, and control
elements into a single experience. Of these, the audio component is often
treated as a secondary concern in both the design and research arenas. Our
research seeks to remedy this, by focusing on audio elements of games, their
impact they can have, and how audio design can be integrated in the overall
design process. This poster will present the audio games we have created to
test these elements, and our current research findings on how audio features
can affect overall gameplay. We will also propose the configuration of these
audio features for effective audio-based games.

We introduce a theory of how game mechanics are signaled through interfaces.
Game mechanics may be signaled through player-perceived affordances,
player-interpreted signifiers, avatar-perceived affordances, avatar-interpreted
signifiers, arbitrary signifiers, or metagame signifiers, and may be obscured
with hidden affordances and false signifiers. Each has implications for
immersion, narrative coherence, and player frustration. Designers can use game
mechanic signaling to understand how a player will perceive action
opportunities in play, suggesting alternate designs to support or inhibit
discovery and game mechanic engagement.

In this work in progress paper we present our work in the co-design of a
playful interactive artifact that encourages people to engage in casual
physical activity in the park. The initial testing of our proof-of-concept
prototype received extremely positive feedback as a potential way of motivating
people to keep active in the park and in bridging the generation gap.

PLEX as input and evaluation tool in persuasive game design: pilot study

One of the main objectives in game design is to create game experiences that
enhance the motivation to start and continue to play the game. To gain insight
into which game experiences can be evolved by the game, designers have been
using PLEX cards in the user input phase or in the product evaluation phase of
the design process. However, to our knowledge, no research has been conducted
to check if the PLEX gathered design input experiences matches the experiences
that are evolved by the game in the final design. This study checks if such a
use of PLEX is possible in a game design procedure for youngsters in treatment
for drug addiction. Youngsters firstly selected their preferred PLEX
experiences. Secondly, a game designer created a prototype based on the user's
motivating experiences and a prototype based on the user's least motivating
experiences. Thirdly, other youngsters from the addiction clinic evaluated both
prototypes by selecting the PLEX cards that matched their game experiences
best. Results suggested that motivating PLEX experiences resulted in a better
tailored prototype. However, PLEX experiences derived in the user input phase
could not be matched one-on-one to the ones in the evaluation phase. This can
problematize the usage of PLEX as a general tool for experience-based game
design.

Designing a gameful system to support the collection, curation, exploration,
and sharing of sports memorabilia

Collectors often attach memories and stories to the objects they collect.
These stories can be lost over time, and particularly when the collections are
digitized. In this paper, we present semi-structured interviews with collectors
of hockey memorabilia to inform a set of design guidelines for creating games
and playful interfaces that support collectors. Our interviews highlighted the
importance of narrative, organization, and authenticity to collection, and
identified the need to support emergent behaviour. Our work provides an example
of gameful design principles that could motivate collectors to digitize and
share their collections.

This paper proposes Interactive Social Stories (ISS), a new approach for
enhancing traditional autism interventions to promote stimulus generalization.
Using interactive narrative techniques of variability and branching structures,
we designed a tablet-based ISS app called FriendStar to teach 9-13 year old
children on the autism spectrum the social skills of greeting in the school
context.

Towards balancing learner autonomy and pedagogical process in educational
games

We present the preliminary work in the TAEMILE project, which aims to
co-regulate the learning process in educational games by automatically
balancing learners autonomy and the pedagogical processes intended by
educators. We focus on our design rationale and the initial results from our
user study.

Workshop summaries

While the importance of participatory design has been acknowledged broadly
within the field of HCI, its use in serious games is less frequent. This
workshop will explore the underpinning reasons for this gap and advance the
identification of philosophical, methodological and pragmatic opportunities as
well as challenges. The workshop will serve as a venue for synthesizing
productive practices and a future agenda that will benefit serious game design
processes.

Game Jams have successfully been introduced to the CHI Community during the
past two years. Game developers meet to plan, design, and create one or more
games within a short time span (ranging from 24 to 48 hours). We propose a Game
Idea Jam focusing on the opportunity to draw on researchers' and developers'
own experiences when developing creative game ideas for sport or exertion to
combat physical inactivity. Game Idea Jams focus on brainstorming and
conceptualizing of one or more game ideas within seven hours. Due to time
constraints, the final game idea will be produced in the form of a conceptual
video, trying to demonstrate the player experience. We aim to enable game
researcher with no development skills to participate in the Game Idea Jam and
support them with different creative approaches to choose from.

What new challenges does the combination of games and eye-tracking present?
The EyePlay workshop brings together researchers and industry specialists from
the fields of eye-tracking and games to address this question. Eye-tracking
been investigated extensively in a variety of domains in human-computer
Interaction, but little attention has been given to its application for gaming.
As eye-tracking technology is now an affordable commodity, its appeal as a
sensing technology for games is set to become the driving force for novel
methods of player-computer interaction and games evaluation. This workshop
presents a forum for eye-based gaming research, with a focus on identifying the
opportunities that eye-tracking brings to games design and research, on
plotting the landscape of the work in this area, and on formalising a research
agenda for EyePlay as a field. Possible topics are, but not limited to, novel
interaction techniques and game mechanics, usability and evaluation,
accessibility, learning, and serious games contexts.

Keynote address

As we gather data to inform game design choices, we often run into
situations where the information we gather is acquired through biased
methodologies or incomplete in some fashion or not necessarily suited to answer
the specific question at hand. This talk will speculate on how we could attempt
to solve some of these common issues as well as look to the future of what
might be possible in Games User Research. By drawing on relevant findings from
psychology, examples drawn from real world experience, advances in technology,
and a healthy dose of optimism, this talk will attempt to envision a world
where our processes are less biased, our data is more complete, and we are able
to address a much broader range of investigations than is currently possible.

Course descriptions

Video games have become a driving force for innovation in many aspects of
the entertainment industry and beyond. Since gaming may also be in a position
to drive the emerging "maker movement", we consider the "DIY game industry". In
this half-day course, attendees will be introduced to DIY Game Console
construction and programming by building their own game console, based on a
simple 12 LED and 4 button design, and then programming their console to play
very simple, yet entertaining, games. Attendees will also be exposed to the
tradeoffs in design between capabilities in gameplay and complexity of hardware
and software.

Participants in this hands-on workshop will learn the mechanics of
clinically tested behavior change interventions, as well as techniques game
designers use to motivate, engage and reward players through a game's
lifecycle. A practical, step-by-step methodology will be introduced and built
upon throughout this 4 hour course, resulting in a scalable framework and
process for designing playful and practical behavior change games.

Keynote address II

The talk is a first (probably doomed and certainly biased) attempt by the
speaker to fuse his work-to-date on the 5 Domains of Play (a gamer-translation
of the Big 5 psychological model) with Scott Rigby & co.'s PENS model (a
gamer-translation of Self-Determination Theory).
While trying to form this Player Motivational Voltron, we may touch briefly
on how a few other existing models might also be compatible this horrid
abomination, but the focus of this talk will be squarely on PENS and the 5
Domains. The goal is to describe a map of player motivations that not only
talks about player typologies and satisfactions, but that can also describe how
player motivations change as they move from first-contact, engagement, and on
into nostalgia. It will probably never work. But the attempt should at least be
entertaining to watch.